The Postmodern

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The first thing you need to know about Postmodernism is that it's an incredibly problematic term. The second thing you need to know is WHY it's called Post-modern. And the third thing you need to know is how to separate it from plagiarism or pop-art.

A possible fourth thing you need to know is that I consider myself a postmodernist, so I've got a bias here. I'll try and stop it from showing though.

1. The Postmodern - It's Incredibly Problematic.

Postmodernism is problematic because it's often used as a "woolly" term - one that a certain type of person might try and slip into a conversation where they're sure no one ELSE knows what it means either, to remind everyone how clever they are.

It's problematic because, while the basic theories are fairly simple, it affects almost every aspect of thought. This means that people who like the theories think it's the bee's knees, cat's pyjama's and a whole host of other great hyperboles. People who DON'T like the theories however consider it one of the greatest tragedies of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This leads to a huge amount of debate and, occasionally, name-calling. (Professor Frederick Jameson, I'm looking in your direction...) ;)

Even more problems are caused by the fact that it challenges almost everything we think we know. Then again, if we don't question things regularly, how are we going to be sure they're still relevant?

And then there's the problems caused by the terminology... what does "modern" actually MEAN? Does "post-modernity" mean that modernity is over, or that someone didn't think the name through properly? Let's deal with this one now...

2. The Postmodern - Why It's Called Post-modern.

When people use the word modern in everyday speech, they tend to mean it in the context of the contemporary; In art and philosophy, the word USUALLY refers to the series of movements from the late nineteenth century to about nineteen-seventy. All those "-isms"; cubism, expressionism, fascism, absurdism... you know the sort. Historically, the 'modern' period normally refers to the cusp of the sixteenth and seventeenth century (the Tudor and Stuart periods in England). Coincidentally enough, the time of the English Renascence, but more on that in a minute.

Let's ignore the first meaning - if 'postmodern' meant 'after the contemporary' it'd just be a very confusing term for 'the future'.

The second use of the word 'modern' is probably the most useful. All of these '-isms' are attempts to find and express "The Grand Narrative". The Grand Narrative is, literally, the 'ultimate story'; that is the story that tells us what life is about, why we're here, what things mean, what's good and bad... It is, if you will, the meaning of Life, The Universe and Everything. Marxism is a good example - it provides a place for humans, a place we're we could, with some work and thought, end up, notions of good and bad and so on. Any of these examples might work, but the important thing is that they all consider themselves to be THE Grand Narrative.

Well, THEY don't, because that'd mean that theories think, which is a fairly distressing. The people that believe in them think that they're believing in THE Grand Narrative though. Any rational, free thinking person could and should, they maintain, be convinced of the validity of their beliefs.

As for the third definition, we're onto trickier ground here. In order to fully appreciate the shift from the Medieval to the Modern, we need to know a fair amount about the period, which is frankly well outside the brief of this article. It'd go on for PAGES. I'd be accused of wasting bandwidth on a colossal scale too. The important idea is that of the Renascence. Some of the basic things that European societies believed - the nature of individuality, society, religion, art... pretty much everything, started undergoing radical change at pretty much the same time. It might have started with good old Decarts (at least, my tutor at university claimed it did, and he was WELL smart). Suddenly, the words "I think, therefore I am" hit the scene and the I became so much more important as an idea.

It didn't happen overnight, and it upset quite a lot of people, who claimed it wasn't really happening at all and that it was just young people not respecting tradition. But it was over within about a hundred and fifty years, which is almost nothing in terms of human history. Pretty quick from that point of view.

If you look at the art and plays from this period, there's a sudden influx of REALLY creative stuff. Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Michaelangello, Middleton, Bacon. This could be because you've got two VERY different ways of looking at the world coming into conflict. Most of the plays of the period have older characters with old fashioned views that don't really fit in anymore. Macbeth is, on one level, all ABOUT the differences in the ideas of individuality, society and fate in the medieval and modern. I suppose all this could also be an almighty coincidence, but I'll let you make up your own mind on that score.

Anyway, it's around this time that we start thinking in terms of The Grand Narrative - the way we think and argue starts becoming both more sophisticated and more accessible (look at the advances we made when alchemy and apocethry became chemistry and medicine, for example.) I'd say that this is the most relevant use of 'modern' for our purposes. But it's also the hardest to get a grip on if you're not familiar with the period I'm talking about (and incidentally, the English Renascence happened a little while after the European one, in that bizarre way that we in England ALWAYS seem to get hold of good ideas last.) so if none of this last bit sits comfortably, just ignore it. The history of modernism isn't too important at the moment.

Now, when we get to the twentieth century, we start getting a huge explosion of ideas again. There are hundreds of possible reasons for this, from the sudden increase in technological progress through to the sudden increase to the confusion caused by World Wars I and II. And suddenly some people start thinking, "maybe there is no Grand Narrative."

And that's the central idea behind postmodernism. That there is no Great Truth, no Ultimate Story. Or that, if there is one, you can never be sure that you know it. There a over six billion people on this planet, most of whom are sure that they know the Grand Narrative and very few of whom agree with each other. You can never REALLY prove that you're right or someone else is wrong. People often bring up ideas such as murder, which (most) humans consider to be 'wrong'. And from our point of view, it is. But that's OUR point of view, our SUBJECTIVE point of view. Postmodernists claim that we can't help having a subjective point of view, but that we can never have an OBJECTIVE one - that is, we can't ever be free of bias, or see things from a neutral point of view. Does the Universe really mind if we murder each other? WE do, but does the Universe?

This isn't entirely negative though - the implication is that while there is no Truth, or at least, if there is we can never be sure we know what it is, all the little truths, the smaller narratives, the subjective points of view, are equally valid. Your idea of right and wrong has the same chance of being right as everyone else's.

This point tends to cause problems, where someone points to a nasty, horrific event in history and says "but that means that this isn't wrong!" Which is about half right. We can still think of it as wrong from our subjective point of view. It IS wrong from our subjective point of view. But the people who did this horrific event probably didn't do it thinking, "Hey boys! Let's' go do something REALLY evil and horrible!" In all probability, they were just people who happened to believe different things. And we can't be sure of whether it's wrong or not from an objective point of view. This doesn't make our point of view less valid, but it means we can't be sure that we're right.

Put it this way - how do you convince a large number of people to do something that is clearly wrong? If the fact that's it's wrong is obvious, they wouldn't do it. At least, not willingly.

At least, I don't think that Postmodernism is entirely negative. But a lot of people disagree with me. They see it as humans simply giving up the important search for truth. The problem is either you BELIEVE in absolute right and wrong or you don't. There isn't really any middle ground that I'm aware of.

3. The Postmodern - What it isn't.

The problem is that a lot of people have looked at the claims of postmodernism and taken them to mean that just because there's no Truth with a capital T, because there's no grand narrative, what we're saying is that no truths are valid at all. Which isn't what we're saying. We're saying they're ALL as valid as each other. It's also not true that we believe there's nothing new to say. That is, some of us might, but that's not what post-modernism is about... it's more what some people who happen to be postmodernist might believe.

Postmodernism is often thought of as a bunch of cynical people saying "there's nothing to say and no new ways left to say it, so let's just rehash old ideas." There's another article on the Guide that says pretty much that; in article A99119, Barclewort says "in other words, if you can't come up with an original idea it's OK to copy someone else's."

This isn't really postmodernism, it's plagiarism. That's not a school of modernism, by the way, it just means 'stealing ideas'. Barclewort does, in fairness get to this conclusion by saying that it's ONE of the ideas of postmodernism that fiction is as real as fact. This is a "kind of" truth... Most postmodernists would say that if you know it's a 'fiction', it's not as valid as what you think the 'fact' is. The point is that you're that only one who can meaningfully decide the difference for yourself.

Then he goes on to say that it's perfectly legitimate to write, "books, movies, and TV shows about other books, movies and TV shows." Sure, why not? But that's not the claim of postmodernism, even if it is claimed by some postmodernists.

4. The Postmodern - I hope I've cleared that up.

I really do. It's a huge subject, and I'm skipping over a LOT of the ideas, thinkers, counter-arguments and so on. But with any luck, some of you will have a clear idea on what postmodernism means, as opposed to what the word is in danger of meaning because of people misusing at a certain type of party.

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